


Streets and Open Places

by Werelibrarian



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: M/M, Psychic Bond, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 06:19:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16948617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Werelibrarian/pseuds/Werelibrarian
Summary: "I will rise therefore now, and go about in the city, by the streets, and by the open places, and will seek him that my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not."(Song of Solomon 3.2, 1599 Geneva Bible)By the time they passed the bar, Matt had checked—more than once—that Foggy wasn't his soulmate."Foggy," he thought loudly as they sat side by side in the library, "Foggy, can you hear me?"





	Streets and Open Places

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for an anonymous user on Tumblr.

Matt had been that kid in class who fought with the sister when the topic of soulmates came up. Sister Margaret had one every year.

"If my soulmate can hear everything I'm thinking, I hope I never meet them," Matt had said hotly, on his feet in the middle of the classroom. It was enough that God could hear his his private thoughts. He wasn't going to share them with someone who wasn't going to understand anything about him. What if Matt's soulmate told other people his secrets? Oh God, what if they _weren't even from New York?_

"Everyone has a soulmate, Matthew," Sister Margaret said tightly, "as is God's plan. Like Adam and Eve, or the animals that boarded the ark two by two."

"Then who's yours?"

"I am a woman of God and God is my soulmate," she said shortly. (She was lying. Sister Margaret could hear Sister Catherine, but since Catherine couldn't hear her in return, there was no reason to bring it up.)

Matt wrinkled his nose. "You hear God's thoughts?"

"No, but he hears mine. Now sit down," she ordered, before Matt could argue that was _just praying_.

***

"I don't want a soulmate," Matt groused to the boys in his dormitory that evening.

"I do," Hank said. "It's like having a girlfriend but better. And she can never break up with you because you'll always be in her head."

Matt hadn't thought about that. Maybe you could still talk to them even after they died. He wondered if anyone's soulmate had been their dad. That would have been nice.

"I hope my soulmate's in the Army," Hank sighed, "then we could be in the same unit. And a psychic link would make us awesome during missions."

"I hope mine's a supermodel," Grant said, "I'd get to look at her all the time and have peace and quiet in my head at the same time," he laughed, and Hank whacked him with a pillow.

"She'd have to be pretty stupid to put up with you."

Matt rolled his eyes, turned his back, and bent his head low over his braille book.

***

Matt bumped into a crowd of boys just inside the door of St. Agnes'.

"What's going on?" He could hear someone crying in the Head Sister's office.

"They found out about Grant's soulmate," Hank muttered.

Matt's eye's went wide. A few months ago, Grant started hearing Kyung-soo in his head, a boy whose father owned the bodega a block over. He'd only told Matt because they'd been washing the dishes together when Grant grabbed at his head, fell down, and asked what the word Appa meant. Turned out it was Korean for Dad.

"Who snitched?" Matt muttered.

"No one," Hank said. "I think Kyung-Soo just started hearing Grant today because he came over and blabbed it out to everyone. He thought the Sisters would be happy for them."

"Fuck," Matt muttered.

"Yeah, and now Grant's shit is all gone from the room."

"Oh fuck," Matt said, vehemently this time. He'd heard about other kids in other church orphanages who disappeared when they got outed by the voices in their heads.

"Yeah." Hank said heavily.

***

"So, do you have a soulmate?" Matt's new roommate asked their third night together.

Wait, Matt didn't mean that. Together as in the same dorm room. Not together in any other sense. Except as friends. Maybe. It was going ok so far, but that was it. It didn't matter that Foggy Nelson made Matt feel like he was moments away from kissing someone, fainting, and throwing up, all at once.

"Uh, no. Do you?"

"Nope, but It's just a matter of time," Foggy said happily.

"Good luck," Matt said, after an awkward silence.

"Thanks! There's this girl I saw, Marci? Maybe it's her. She was looking at me during orientation. Or maybe it's that guy, with the name. He was looking at me too."

"Errol something?"

"Yeah. Something something the third. No thanks," Foggy laughed. "Maybe he's yours! Did you get any tingles near him?"

"Yeah a little," Matt said drily, "but it might have been a hairball coming up." There was no way he was going to share his thoughts with a my-father's-yacht-has-three-pools type. He'd learn to think in Swahili first.

Foggy laughed happily again. Matt's mouth twitched without his meaning to.

"Don't worry, we'll find yours."

"It's ok, I don't really believe in it."

"What? You can't really mean that! I mean, of course you can mean that but, God, that poor girl—or guy, I'm cool—that misses out on having you as a soulmate?" Foggy reached his hands out like he was about to cup Matt's face lovingly, and Matt found himself leaning forward before Foggy shoved his hands into his pockets.

"No one's missing anything, I promise, Foggy."

"A life without you, buddy," Foggy said, throwing an arm around him reassuringly, which made Matt feel twitchy and glowy at the same time, "ain't worth living."

***

By the time they passed the bar, Matt had checked—more than once—that Foggy wasn't his soulmate.

"Foggy," he thought loudly as they sat side by side in the library, "Foggy, can you hear me?"

"Foggy, you're my best friend." He tried to beam the thought into Foggy's head from across their apartment. 

"Foggy, I love you," he said silently, one arm around Foggy's shoulders and an empty, jaegermeister-scented shot-glass rolling between his fingers. "I just. Love the crap out of you. A life without you, buddy—"

"What're you mumbling there, ducky?" Foggy's lips brushed Matt's neck.

"Nothing," Matt snuffled, and buried his smile in Foggy's hair.

***

As Matt tied the blindfold over his eyes and waited for that child-molesting bastard to bring his ass into Matt's world of hurt, he knew he was kissing goodbye any chance hearing Foggy's voice in his head.

There had been so many times he wanted to tell Foggy about what could do, about what he was, but that wasn't what people who loved others did. Matt didn't need a psychic link to know that Foggy was the greatest gift God ever gave him, and he was going to protect that gift. Protect him from the evil in the world, like the man Matt was waiting for. Protect him from the darkness that Matt needed to fight that evil. 

This was something he had to do, he had to do it alone, and alone meant for good, for the rest of his life, no exceptions.

He never wanted a soulmate anyway.

***

_I only ever wanted my friend._

Matt squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing down guilt and hurt that felt like it was growing and growing and forcing all the air from the room. They weren't soulmates; Matt had proof now.

Foggy hadn't known. Matt's thoughts had been so clear then, purified from uncertainty every time his fist made contact, and Foggy hadn't heard any of it. He didn't understand. And now he never would.

***

As they were about to get into the taxi, a gunshot made Matt jerk his head.

"What is it?" Foggy asked, on the other side of the car.

"I have to go."

"But—“

"Foggy." Please understand, Matt begged inside his mind. "I have to go _now_."

Foggy nodded slowly. "Ok. Be safe."

Matt nodded back, faded into an alleyway, and was up over the roofs before his feet went out from under him and he crashed into asphalt. 

_God, I know we don't talk a lot. But. Keep him safe._ Foggy's voice was booming in stereo. It made his head ring.

"Not so loud!" Matt yelled, hands over his ears, but he was alone.

_I know he has to do this. Just let him come back to me, please._

Matt put his head down and tried to breathe, hearing Foggy's blessing echo against the inside of his skull, over and over.

_I know he has to do this. I know he has to do this. I know he has to do this._

Gravel caught in his teeth when he laughed, knocked flat and completely incapable of standing up under the weight of the gift he'd just been given. Foggy understood. He was Matt's soulmate, and he understood.

***

Summer came, and that was as good an excuse as any for why Matt went perpetually hot-faced around Foggy.

 _You're my soulmate,_ Matt thought happily from behind his own desk. He could hear Foggy in their conference room, talking in his best trust-me-I'm-a-lawyer tone of voice. _You're my soulmate and I love you._

The fact that Foggy's bright, competent patter didn't falter once meant that he couldn't hear Matt. Which meant—Matt thought back to Sister Margaret's lesson—he didn't love Matt. Matt loved him, but he hadn't earned it back yet.

He felt his watch. 11:30 on a Wednesday in June. A perfectly good time to start.

***

"Karen, can you file that?" Foggy handed her a stack of paper. "And then get yourself home, you perfect example of humanity, because it's Friday."

"Don't have to tell me twice. Don't work too late, boys," she sang, as she kicked the filing cabinet closed and grabbed her coat in one fluid motion.

"So," Foggy said, leaning on Matt's desk. "Josies?"

Matt fiddled with his tie. "Actually, I was wondering. Do you. Want to have dinner?"

"Sure. Sushi sound good?" Foggy pulled out his phone and started poking at it. In his mind, Matt heard Foggy mentally mumbling to himself about restaurants.

Matt twisted his fingers together. "I made a reservation at that French place for tonight, uh. Because."

"Oh, ok, sushi tomorrow?" _There's that good place in Brooklyn, would that be worth the trip?_

"What? No, Foggy, let's go tonight."

"Sushi?

"French!"

"Sounds like a date."

"Well, it is!" Matt shouted, then covered his mouth with his hand.

Foggy looked up from his phone. "That's great," he said slowly, like Matt was simple, "you go on your date tonight and we'll have sushi tomorrow." _Lucky girl_ , Foggy sighed in Matt's mind.

Before Matt could say a thing, Foggy told him to have fun, bring a condom, and he'd see him later.

Matt put his face down on the desk. "I hate you," he mumbled.

 _I love you_ , he thought.

***

Four hours later, Matt was still at his desk, working grumpily, when the phone rang.

"Where are you?" Foggy shouted as soon as Matt picked up.

"At the office."

"Oh fuck, I've been ringing your doorbell for like ten minutes, I thought you'd died."

"I haven't died," Matt said, leaning back in his chair and finding himself smiling at the sound of Foggy's voice.

"So I had a thought—"

"Oh God, did it hurt?"

"—haha, dickbag. And stop me if I've got the wrong end of the stick, but. Did you ask me out tonight?"

Matt sat up straight. He cleared his throat. "Yes."

There was a muffled sound, and then a muffled, but heartfelt "fuck" from Foggy, like he had put his hand over the phone to swear. "Oh."

"Yeah."

"Yeah." Another long pause. "Yeah."

"Yeah what?"

"Yeah, French sounds nice."

Matt's legs shot him to standing, for reasons best known to themselves. He just knew he couldn't do this sitting down. "I cancelled the reservation."

"Oh." Foggy's footsteps stopped. "Okay, well, I'll see you on Monday, Matt," and his voice made it obvious he was going to roll up the whole conversation and stuff it under the bed.

"Foggy wait," Matt shouted, then stopped. "Just give me a second."

He put his hand over the phone and grimaced, trying out words in his head.

 _Foggy, you are the most important person in my life_ , Matt rehearsed. _My whole life. I've loved you since college and I know I haven't given you much of a reason to think I would make you a priority, but give me a chance and I'll spend my whole life trying to prove it to you._

Matt let out a slow breath and put his phone back to his ear.

"Foggy, you are—" Dial tone. Matt collapsed into his chair and covered his face. _Dammit. Goddammit all to hell._

 _Don't blaspheme,_ Matt heard in his head, _you'll just have to confess it on Sunday._

_Foggy?_

_So I fell down and hit my head, and then suddenly you were inside it, screaming about college._ Matt could feel the smile in his voice.

_Foggy!_

_Great, I get a soulmate and he's not much of a conversationalist, even inside his own mind._

Matt grinned. _Oh, you're on your way here. You're thinking about takeout sushi. Get me some—_

_I got it, Matt. I'm getting a lot about you now. Christ, your brain is like a firehose. Oh, Matty._

It went both ways. Matt felt Foggy's star-struck affection for him in college like a living, wiggling thing, like a puppy to be doted on and cuddled. He felt the way Foggy's eyes had prickled with proud tears and silent promises of devotion as Matt gave his valedictory address. He felt each and every pang Foggy felt whenever Matt made a joke about them kissing, heard how each time, Foggy would promise himself, _next time. The next time he jokes, I'll tell him the truth._

He felt the heart-stopping fear the Foggy had felt when he'd found Matt bleeding into the floorboards of his living room, the nauseating humiliation after, and then the way Foggy had gathered his love for Matt like a million threads and twisted it into a rope to hold on to, for himself, and for their friendship, and for belief in Daredevil. _Oh Foggy…_

_Yeah. Hey Matt. FYI, I kinda love you. And I'm bringing you that really unhealthy Japanese fried chicken, because that's your favourite, even though you always swore it was seaweed salad._

Matt put a hand over his face. There go all his secrets, he thought, and couldn't stop smiling about it. _Hey Foggy. I kinda love you too._


End file.
